Corrugated cabinet

ABSTRACT

A corrugated cabinet of the present invention is provided with a main body and a back plate. The main body consists of several vertical plates and several transversal plates, which define at least two compartments therebetween. Each compartment has a rear opening, which is sealed by the back plate. The back plate includes several cardboards that are entirely enveloped by a paper skin. Furthermore, a seam is interposed between each two adjacent cardboards, and the seam has a width substantially equal to a sum of thicknesses of the two cardboards. Whereby, the back plate is foldable along the scam and becomes less space-consuming before sealing the rear openings.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention is a CIP of application Ser. No. 11/892,315, filed Aug. 22, 2007, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

2. Description of the Prior Art

To meet the global environmental concern, many traditional materials making up daily commodities are gradually replaced by recyclable and reusable green materials. Among them, the corrugated board is one of the most typical green materials.

The corrugated board has been used in the furniture field, such as discussed in TW 405363, U.S. Pat. No. 3,807,823 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,234,088, so that the furniture has low-weighted and collapsible characters.

With respect to the cabinets, most of then have a back plate to seal the compartments thereof. One of the conventional back plates consists of single plate that can seal those compartments by itself. However, such single plate has a larger configuration so that it cannot be transported easily, which is contradictive to the collapsible character of the corrugated furniture. Further, the single plate is very likely to be inadvertently folded during the transportation and the assembling procedure.

Another conventional back plate, however, consists of several individual plates that can seal the compartments respectively and individually. Since this kind of corrugated furniture is designed to be assembled by the users themselves, and since the users are not as skilled as the trained manufacturers' personnel, the DIY assembled individual plates are not flush with each other most of the time, i.e. the users usually come up with installation problems such as plate inclination, overlapping or gaps between separate plates. What's worse, if the user tries to tear down the misassembled plate and reinstall it, one problem that the structure of either the cabinet or the plate is irreversibly damaged will be arisen, which leads to insufficient bound strength and aesthetic defects.

The present invention is, therefore, arisen to mitigate and/or obviate the afore-mentioned disadvantages.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The main object of the present invention is to provide a corrugated cabinet that can be easily assembled.

To achieve the above object, a corrugated cabinet of the present invention is provided with a main body and a back plate. The main body consists of several vertical plates and several transversal plates, which define at least two compartments therebetween. Each compartment has a rear opening, which is sealed by the back plate. The back plate is foldable.

The present invention will become more obvious from the following description when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, which show, for purpose of illustrations only, the preferred embodiments in accordance with the present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a drawing showing a corrugated cabinet in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is an explosive drawing showing a corrugated cabinet in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2A is an enlarged profile showing the joint portion of two adjacent plates of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is an explosive drawing showing a back plate in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a combination drawing showing a back plate in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a side view of a back plate being folded in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is an enlarged profile showing a back plate being folded in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a side view of a back plate being folded;

FIG. 8 is an enlarged profile showing a back plate being folded;

FIG. 9 is a drawing showing a corrugated cabinet in accordance with another preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 10 is a drawing showing a corrugated cabinet in accordance with yet another preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 11 is a drawing showing a back plate of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Refer to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 for the first embodiment of the present invention. A corrugated cabinet 1 of the first embodiment includes a main body 10 and a back plate 20.

The main body 10 consists of several vertical plates 11 and several transversal plates 12. The vertical and transversal plates 11, 12 are made of corrugated board, which may include several corrugated layers sandwiched between several cardboard layers. As shown in FIG. 2A, two glue layers 13 are disposed between each of the vertical plate 11 and the adjacent transversal plate 12, and an isolator 14, such as a paper based thin substrate, being sandwiched between the glue layers 13. Therefore, the vertical and transversal plates 11, 12 are bound together and define two compartments 15, each of which has a front opening and a rear opening. It is noted that the two glue layers 13 and the isolator 14 may be disposed on the plate 11 with a release paper 16 covered thereon, and the release paper 16 is torn off just before the plate 12 is installed on the plate 11, as shown in FIG. 2.

The back plate 20 seals the rear openings of the compartments 15. The back plate 20 having at least one folding line as shown in FIG. 11, along which the back plate 20 is foldable. The folding line may be formed in the manner of rolling. The folding line divides the back plate into several parts, each of which corresponds to one of the rear openings. Or, as shown in FIG. 3 and FIG. 4, the back plate 20 includes several cardboards 21, each of which has a configuration corresponding to one of the rear openings. The cardboards 21 are arranged to form a matrix corresponding to a permutation of the compartments 15, and a seam 22 is interposed between each two adjacent cardboards 21, in which the seam 22 has a width substantially equal to a sum of thicknesses of the two cardboards 21. A paper skin 23 entirely envelops the matrix of the cardboards 21. Thereby, the back plate is foldable along the seam 22 and becomes less space-consuming before sealing the rear openings. Specifically, the skin 23 includes a thinner outer skin 24 and a thicker inner skin 25. A width and a length of the outer skin 24 are bigger than a width and a length of the matrix of the cardboards 21 respectively, and a width and a length of the inner skin 25 are smaller than the width and the length of the matrix of the cardboards 21 respectively. The outer skin 24 covers a whole surface of the matrix facing away the rear openings, and rims 26 of the outer skin 24 which extend beyond a configuration of the matrix, are folded inward to cover a part of a surface of the matrix facing the rear openings. The inner skin 25 covers the surface of the matrix facing the rear openings, and rims of the inner skin 25 overlap a part of the rims 26 of the outer skin 24 to totally cover the matrix of cardboards. In addition, the seam 22 preferably overlaps the vertical plate 11 or the transversal plate 12 which locates between two adjacent compartments 15, depending on the permutation of the compartments 15. Therefore, the seam 22 will not be seen from the front of the corrugated cabinet 1.

It is noted that the width of the seam 22 is substantially equal to the sum of thicknesses of two cardboards 21. In such case, the cardboards 21 can be folded smoothly as shown in FIG. 5 and FIG. 6. However, if the width of the seam 22 were smaller than the sum of thicknesses of two cardboards 21, as shown in FIG. 7 and FIG. 8, the two cardboards 21 would be forced to bend by the tension of the outer skin 24, provided that the outer skin 24 is substantially unstretchable and the cardboards 21 are substantially incompressible. As a result, the cardboards 21 are curve configured so that the back plate 20 cannot attached to the main body 10 evenly. The thickness of the inner skin 25 is so small, in comparison to that of a cardboard, that it can be neglected as the back plate 20 is folded.

Refer to FIG. 9 for the second embodiment of the present invention. Several door plates 30 are provided to selectively close the front openings of the compartments 15 respectively.

Refer to FIG. 10 for the third embodiment of the present invention. Several partitions 40 are disposed in the compartments 15. The height of the partition 40 is substantially equal to that of its corresponding compartment 15, such that the partitions 40 can stand in the compartments 15 respectively to divide the compartments 15 into several sub-compartments as well as to achieve decoration purpose. The partitions 40 may be firmly fixed in the compartments 15 by glue, screws or other fixation means, or the partitions 40 may be movably disposed in the compartments 15 without any fixation means. It can be seen in this embodiment that the cabinet may includes more than two components. In addition, the height, width and depth of the vertical and transversal plates may be varied to form components with different configuration.

In summary, the back plate 20 of the present invention is foldable so as to save the space needed to store the back plate 20 before the corrugated cabinet 1 is installed. In addition, the width of the seam between two cardboards is designed to substantially equal to thicknesses of the two cardboards, such that the back plate can be folded smoothly without noticeable cardboard deformation. 

1. A corrugated cabinet, comprising: a main body, consisting of several vertical plates and several transversal plates, the vertical and transversal plates being made of corrugated board, two glue layers being disposed between each of the vertical plate and the adjacent transversal plate, and an isolator being sandwiched between the glue layers, such that the vertical and transversal plates being bound together and defining at least two compartments, each of which has a front opening and a rear opening; and a back plate, sealing the rear openings of the compartments, the back plate is foldable.
 2. The corrugated cabinet of claim 1, wherein the back plate has at least one folding line, along which the back plate is foldable, the folding line divides the back plate into several parts, each of which corresponds to one of the rear openings.
 3. The corrugated cabinet of claim 1, wherein the back plate comprises several cardboards, each of which has a configuration corresponding to one of the rear openings, the cardboards are arranged to form a matrix corresponding to a permutation of the compartments, and a paper skin entirely envelops the matrix of the cardboards; wherein a seam is interposed between each two adjacent cardboards, the seam has a width substantially equal to a sum of thicknesses of the two cardboards, whereby the back plate is foldable along the seam and becomes less space-consuming before sealing the rear openings.
 4. The corrugated cabinet of claim 3, wherein the seam overlaps the vertical plate or the transversal plate, which locates between two adjacent compartments.
 5. The corrugated cabinet of claim 3, wherein the skin comprises a thinner outer skin and a thicker inner skin, a width and a length of the outer skin are bigger than a width and a length of the matrix of the cardboards respectively, and a width and a length of the inner skin are smaller than the width and the length of the matrix of the cardboards respectively, the outer skin covers a whole surface of the matrix facing away the rear openings, and rims of the outer skin, which extend beyond a configuration of the matrix, are folded inward to cover a part of a surface of the matrix facing the rear openings, the inner skin covers the surface of the matrix facing the rear openings, and rims of the inner skin overlap a part of the rims of the outer skin.
 6. The corrugated cabinet of claim 1, further comprising several door plates to selectively close the front openings of the compartments respectively.
 7. The corrugated cabinet of claim 1, further comprising several partitions, each of which being disposed in one of the compartments, a height of each of the partitions being substantially equal to that of its corresponding compartment, such that the partitions can stand, either movably or firmly, in the compartments respectively. 